


A Sea of Clouds

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 17:42:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3419774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Rose land on a planet much like Earth and have to learn to survive while the TARDIS recovers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sea of Clouds

**Author's Note:**

> Hello All,  
> My Name is AeolusPantheon. I'm new to the Doctor Who fandom but have seen every episode, old and new. I chose Doctor/Rose as my pairing because they're the cutest couple in my opinion (even though she gets on my nerves sometimes.) This is the first chapter of what I hope to be able to build into a sprawling world adventure so look forward to new "episodes" in the coming weeks/months/years! 
> 
> Edited: 2/23/2015 @ 3:52PM: Removed a few stray commas and added some more paragraph breaks where dialog has shifted roles (Thanks for the concrit, Mercurie!)

"You're going to love this. The birth of a star. Not something you get to see working at a shopping mall now, is it?"

Rose watched the Doctor talk up the event in his usual eccentric manner. The look in his eyes screamed adventure and excitement so loud It was hard not to get carried away.

She smiled her biggest smile and said, "What are we waiting for?"

He flashed her a big grin in return. "I thought you'd never ask. Brace yourself!" he yelled as he pulled a few levers, rang the old fashioned bell, then flipped the final switch. The TARDIS shook as it started to move through space and time before finally landing with a thud and it's signature oscillating whooshes.

The Doctor and Rose stepped out of the TARDIS and looked around at what seemed to be another point in time on earth. The wind was blowing across the grassy plains that they had landed on. Slight rolling hills adorned the landscape with short bushes populating it and giving it depth. Blue skies stretched above them with a few large cirrus clouds floating overhead. They could hear the sound of water crashing against a shore most likely hidden by one of the hills nearby. They saw no animals on the ground or in the sky. Probably scared by the whooshing sounds the TARDIS had made when landing. All in all, a fairly plain and terrestrial seeming planet.

"Doctor, I thought we were going to a planet somewhere in the Vega sector to watch the birth of a new star. This place seems so, normal. Almost like Earth. Nothing like the black obsidian rock you had said we were going to be watching the birth from." Rose stated, looking quizzically around her. "But, I have to admit, this planet is quite nice. Any chance we're on Earth? I'd love to give my mum a call without the interstellar roaming fees."

The Doctor, ignoring the rambling of his companion, stared at the clouds. He squinted as he stared at them intently, his eyes gazing deep into their rolling, billowing depths. There was something wrong with them, something off, something alien. But he just couldn't place it... not without getting a closer look. Which, to his fortune, would happen quite soon with the wind blowing like it was.

Rose continued on her rant, oblivious to the Doctor's concern with the clouds. "I know she means well, but my mum always seems to make the calls about herself. Ten minutes in and my ears feel like they've ruptured or something. She didn't even pause when I told her about the Daleks the other day. She just went on about her girlfriend in London and how she..." Rose continued on, eventually hitting on how she tore Ricky a new one the other day for always being busy when she called, before finally noticing the Doctor just standing there, staring at the clouds. She asked, "Doctor, what is it? Is something wrong?"

Snapped out of his intense, pensive state, he called to her, "Rose, is it just me, or is that cloud moving towards us?"

Rose, a bit baffled by the question, replied, "Doctor, of course the cloud is moving towards us. The wind is blowing this way!"

He snapped back at her, "I don't mean moving in that way. Look, doesn't it seem to be all wibbly wobbly? It's almost like... it can't be... but could it?... Like it's, coming down towards us!"

The Doctor quickly pulled out his sonic screwdriver and, pointing it at the cloud swiftly descending, activated it. The screwdriver made an oscillating screech and the cloud exploded into a million droplets. It was like diamonds in the sky. But then a strange thing started to happen. Unlike a normal cloud, none of the droplets fell to the ground. Instead, all the little parts that had been blown away by the sonic blast started joining back together. Seemingly rolling towards each other, they collected like raindrops, individuals joining to make larger and larger clouds.

Rose, reaching to move her bangs from her eyes, yelped in pain as a stinging sensation burned up her arm like a thousand suns. "Bollocks!" she yelled, cradling her arm and dropping to the ground.

The Doctor, panicked, ran over and knelt beside her. "Let me see it." he ordered.

She complied apprehensively as she slowly moved her hand from her chest. She looked away, pain from the movement forcing tears from her eyes.

He opened her palm and didn't see anything at first. He turned her hand over and made the same initial observation on that side as well. A quip about her hand just needing a kiss was about to slip his lips, but then something near her index fingernail caught his eye. There, barely visible, was a tiny jellyfish, its bell no larger than a pinhead and its tentacles finer than hairs.

"Why, hello little fella! Got separated from your herd? Well, you're causing my friend here quite a bit of pain so if you could, go along now."

Instinct told the jellyfish that this was not a fight it could win alone, so it removed itself from Rose's hand and floated on the slight updraft created by her body heat to rejoin the collective.

The burning immediately subsided and Rose slumped over, relieved and able to breathe again. "Doctor, what was that creature? Where on Earth are we?"

Grabbing her other hand tightly, he pulled her off the ground and onto her feet. "We're not on Earth, my dear. But we also have no time to waste. Right now we need to move. I'll explain on the way." Gripping her hand tightly, he started pulling her back towards the TARDIS.

"That, my dear Rose, was a creature known as _Carukia barnesi caelum_. What we Time Lords lovingly call Sky Jellyfish. All those clouds up there, they're colonies of millions and millions of them. They group together because of the air currents and pressure systems, much like normal clouds on Earth, but also because they share information as a collective. There's a reason they're in the top ton when it comes to the deadliest creatures in the Universe. Think for a moment about regular clouds on Earth. Normally, when clouds touch the ground, their name changes to fog and it's something ehhh, mildly annoying. Well with Sky Jellyfish, when they touch the ground, nothing escapes. They leave behind death and devastation. And as you can now attest, it's a painful, agonizing death. That's why there aren't any animals on the ground here. Anything that couldn't live underground or in the water has already been eaten. They probably came down because it's been a while since anything as tasty as a Time Lord has come around. How far did we go from the TARDIS?!"

They started running back to the TARDIS, both breathing hard as they tried to stay ahead of the cloud behind them. It had reassembled itself and, with the knowledge gained by the one who had attacked Rose, knew that the Doctor would be a tasty target. The cloud twisted and rounded out to a teardrop shape, one more aerodynamically suited to directional pursuit. It quickly started to gain on them, but the Doctor and Rose had gotten enough of a head start that they reached the TARDIS with the cloud ten meters behind them.

The Doctor used the car clicker to unlock the TARDIS and seconds later he and Rose, both barely inside, slammed the doors behind them. They then heard the sound of a million tiny bodies throwing themselves against the door, trying their hardest to get at the delicious morsels secreted inside.

The Doctor ran to the control panel and pulled levels, pushed buttons, and banged it with a hammer in an attempt to relocate them, but the TARDIS didn't respond. The Doctor slammed his fists on the panel and yelled, "No no no no no!"

"What's going on, Doctor?! Why aren't we moving?"

The Doctor slumped over the TARDIS' main control panel, then slid to to the floor. With his back leaning against the panel he said, "It seems the Jellyfish are disrupting the TARDIS. They're causing too much interference. We're just going to have to wait out this storm."

Rose walked to the right of the Doctor and dropped to the floor beside him, her exhaustion from the recent run catching up with her. She took a few deep breaths and consciously tried to slow her beating heart. Her efforts paid off to some extent: she was now able to breath normally again, but her pulse stayed racing. She initially felt some concern, but quickly blushed as she realized it was due in part to the Doctor being right there, his hand lightly brushing hers in time with his dual beating hearts. The redness in her face quickly grew as she realized that his hand had been much more intimate with hers just moments earlier when running back to the TARDIS. She could still feel his fingers squeezing the hand that had been stung like a vice.  _Hm? But wasn't it the other hand that he held when we were running back?_

The Doctor, also recovered from the run, took note of her increasing redness and felt a cold sweat develop. Might this be a side effect of the sting she had just recently endured? "Rose, are you alright?" he asked while pivoting on his feet, moving to a crouch, and picking up her hand in one smooth motion. He felt her pulse quicken and the look of concern on his face grew to one of dread and fear.

Rose, confused and flustered by the Doctor's sudden interest, pulled back instinctively. "J-Just a bit warm from the run. Nothing a bit of ress won fikth-fikth-fik--- Dogther, my mouph, ai canth feel my mouph!"

The Doctor's hearts stopped as his mind came to a horrible realization.  _Rose was going to die._ _  
_

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of "A Sea of Clouds" and please let me know of any tags I should use, omit, and general feedback on the story! I'd love to hear what the people who hate and love my story think! Concrit (Constructive Criticism) is more than welcome so be brutally honest. I can take it since what doesn't kill me makes me stronger.


End file.
